There’s an especially tumultuous scene in “All is Lost” where Robert Redford is braving a storm on his yacht. The waves toss the boat upside down and Redford is carried along with it, shoved down beneath the ocean surface and drifting aimlessly, free of coherent direction or space. He lunges for the banister as it’s about to rock right-side up, and when he comes out the other side, he shows a momentary sense of uncertainty as he orients himself. “Did that really happen,” Redford seems to say. “Is all of this really happening?”
It’s one surreal moment in this otherwise quietly powerful and grounded film by J.C. Chandor (“Margin Call”). With “All is Lost,” Chandor and Redford together have made an intelligently provocative and tense movie about survival, free of the pretension, the spirituality, the philosophy and most notably the dialogue that detracts from such a story’s purity.
Redford plays a nameless sailor on a one-man yacht 1500 miles off the Sumatran coast. We meet him as he’s jolted awake by water pouring into his cabin. A shipping container has punctured the hull, and now fixing it is the only thing on his mind.
Redford silently responds to this crisis with practical, measured alertness. He dons an athletic, movie star presence but is worn beyond his years. Redford the character seems to inhabit all of Redford the actor and director’s iconography and battle scars through the decades, his face lined with wrinkles and his eyes showing concern but not panic.
At first the accident is little more than a hiccup. Radio, gear and backup equipment is all damaged, and although he can get the hole mended, his faith in his patch is shaken. The man of the elements that he is, everything changes in Redford’s eyes as a storm approaches. Chandor follows Redford up the sail in a massive crane shot and swivels back to reveal the looming terror of the storm.
It’s powerful imagery, something that demonstrates the economy of the film’s style. Like Redford’s nature, cinematographers Frank DeMarco and Peter Zuccarini’s camera surveys the surroundings with meaning. It’s firm and not jostling, but intimate and realistic in its approach. Most films with such a minimalistic story might also induce longer takes and stylistic wide shots, but “All is Lost” does not impose any sort of voice behind the camera. The purposeful cinematography makes this strictly a movie of a man against the ocean.
“All is Lost” is not a slow film either. Though lacking dialogue or plot, the film jumps between Redford’s numerous tasks and chores around the boat doing all he can and all that is necessary for survival. “All is Lost” is very deliberate and up-tempo with its timeline; it doesn’t show the days passing mercilessly in never-ending agony but makes them tick by quickly as though death is catching up, each night and morning a sign of Redford’s mortality.
That the movie succeeds on this symbolic level as much as a purely cathartic one has much to do with Redford’s performance. Here is a veteran actor capable of conveying pathos and relatable charisma free of any character backstory or motivation. At no point do we begin to see into this man’s past, but at no point do we fail to understand his actions or his fears. It is some of the best acting of the year and some of the finest of Redford’s long career.
And yet amidst all the action and feelings of loss and depression that pepper “All is Lost,” watching it sometimes feels like that scene of disorientation. What else could Chandor be saying? What does “Our Man” represent about us?
Those answers are hard to come by, but “All is Lost” has just about a perfect ending that seems to put all of those thoughts into perspective. This year a sea of movies about survival, from “Captain Phillips” to “Gravity” to “12 Years a Slave” and more that aren’t as good, have made thinking and processing the ideas expressed in all of them a challenge. “All is Lost” provides some quiet room for thought in an ocean of noise.
4 stars
Good review Brian. Redford totally deserves a nomination for this, and possibly even a win.
It’ll be interesting to see if he can pull it off. There’s really not a front runner in that race. I’ve heard some pundits wonder if, given the nature of his performance and of the movie, he gets snubbed of a nod altogether. That would be surprising.
I hope not. I don’t see how they could considering he’s a legend of the silver screen, and he’s also never won an Oscar for his acting, just yet. However, this race seems harder and less predictable than any one I can remember in quite some time.